Why the funnel is dead (and what we run instead).
The funnel was a useful model in 2008. It was based on a true premise: most B2B buyers moved through a predictable sequence of stages, and you could throw money at each stage to move them through it.
That premise has been false for at least 5 years. Modern B2B buyers don't move through a funnel. They move through a buying committee, a research process that lasts 6-18 months, and a series of self-directed signal checks before they ever speak to a salesperson.
The funnel persisted because it was easy to teach and easy to draw. It survived too long for a model that no longer described the territory.
The buying committee map, not the funnel
We map every account against the committee structure required to close a deal. For a typical B2B SaaS company, that means 3-7 people: the economic buyer, the user buyer, the technical buyer, the influencer, and 1-2 silent skeptics whose vote nobody talks about until week 5 of the sales cycle.
The "stage" of a deal isn't a position on the funnel. It's a count of how many committee members are engaged.
Multi-thread tracking, not lead tracking
A single lead from an account is not a lead. It's a signal that one person on the committee is interested. We track multi-thread engagement: how many distinct people from a single account have shown signal in the last 60 days.
The threshold we use: when 3+ committee members from the same account show signal in the same week, that account becomes a sales priority.
Account-velocity scoring, not lead scoring
Lead scoring assumes a linear progression. Account velocity scoring measures the rate of change in engagement. An account that went from 1 engaged contact to 4 engaged contacts in 21 days is hot, regardless of any individual lead score.
What we tell sales
Stop asking "where is this lead in the funnel." Start asking "how many people on this account have engaged in the last 30 days, and what's the trend." That single shift changes how time gets allocated and which accounts get the human touch.
If your sales-marketing alignment conversation keeps hitting the same walls, it's worth asking whether you're aligned around a model that hasn't described reality in a decade.